Weird output in using seq(), giving scientific notation and incorrect values

Asked Oct 01 '18 at 20:05

Active Oct 01 '18 at 20:05

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I'm trying to do something very simple: print a sequence of numbers using the seq() function. I entered the following: seq(-.3, 1.2, .1)

Rather than 0.3, 0.2, 0.1, 0.0, etc.... I get the following: [1] -3.000000e-01 -2.000000e-01 -1.000000e-01 5.551115e-17 1.000000e-01 2.000000e-01 3.000000e-01 4.000000e-01 5.000000e-01 [10] 6.000000e-01 7.000000e-01 8.000000e-01 9.000000e-01 1.000000e+00 1.100000e+00 1.200000e+00

Why is it giving me results in scientific notation? And why does it print 0.0 as 5.551115e-17? 5.551115e-17 does not equal 0.0, although it is close. Is there a way to fix this?

asked Oct 01 '18 at 20:05

Digsby

Try with `options(scipen = 999)` – akrun Oct 01 '18 at 20:06
Isn't this a duplicate of https://stackoverflow.com/q/9508518/324364 – joran Oct 01 '18 at 20:07
`options(scipen = 999)` did not help, but it did show that apparently all numbers in my output are approximations rather than the values I wish to obtain. – Digsby Oct 01 '18 at 20:08
floating point errors... this is not R, it is computer! – Wimpel Oct 01 '18 at 20:10
1

use integers to prevent floating point errors.. `seq( -3, 12, 1) / 10` will get you the desired result.. – Wimpel Oct 01 '18 at 20:13
Good idea Wimpel! Thanks! – Digsby Oct 01 '18 at 20:19

Weird output in using seq(), giving scientific notation and incorrect values

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